Sunnova earnings increase as firm aims to ‘not only survive, but thrive’ COVID crisis

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Reddit
Email
Image: Sunnova.

A major US residential installer has reported a surge in both revenues and earnings during Q2 2020, leading it to claim it is not only surviving the COVID-19 pandemic, but thriving.

Reporting its performance for the three months running until 30 June 2020, Sunnova confirmed revenues for the period had jumped by nearly 24% year-on-year to US$42.8 million.

This article requires Premium SubscriptionBasic (FREE) Subscription

Try Premium for just $1

  • Full premium access for the first month at only $1
  • Converts to an annual rate after 30 days unless cancelled
  • Cancel anytime during the trial period

Premium Benefits

  • Expert industry analysis and interviews
  • Digital access to PV Tech Power journal
  • Exclusive event discounts

Or get the full Premium subscription right away

Or continue reading this article for free

This resulted in earnings leaping by almost one-third year-on-year to US$18 million, helping to drastically reduce its net loss for the quarter to US$28.7 million, down on the US$49.8 million loss it reported in Q2 2019. The company also credited its trimmed losses to lower interest rates achieved via rate swaps in the second quarter.

At the end of the reporting period, Sunnova’s customer count had grown to 91,600, and the installer has continued to stand by its full 2020 guidance that the company will add 28 – 30,000 customers this year, swelling earnings to somewhere in the region of US$58 – 62 million.

Sunnova does, however, remain heavily indebted. Its financial results confirm long-term net debt has swollen to just over US$1.6 billion, a substantial increase on the US$1.35 billion long-term net debt it reported at the end of last year, with total long-term liabilities also now standing at just shy of US$2 billion.

In reporting a stronger second quarter, Sunnova compounds recent reports that the US residential solar market is rebounding both stronger and quicker than was perhaps first anticipated. A recent webinar on the US residential solar market organised by Roth Capital concluded that installers were on track to post positive figures for the remainder of 2020, with larger companies particularly well placed to make sizeable gains.

William J. Berger, CEO at Sunnova, said the company’s response to the pandemic had demonstrate how the residential solar market could adapt to “not only survive this crisis, but thrive”.

“With our expanding dealer network and rising storage attachment rate, in the second quarter we believe we grew our customer base at a rate faster than any other public U.S. residential solar and storage service company,” he claimed.

21 October 2025
New York, USA
Returning for its 12th edition, Solar and Storage Finance USA Summit remains the annual event where decision-makers at the forefront of solar and storage projects across the United States and capital converge. Featuring the most active solar and storage transactors, join us for a packed two-days of deal-making, learning and networking.
25 November 2025
Warsaw, Poland
Large Scale Solar Central and Eastern Europe continues to be the place to leverage a network that has been made over more than 10 years, to build critical partnerships to develop solar projects throughout the region.
16 June 2026
Napa, USA
PV Tech has been running PV ModuleTech Conferences since 2017. PV ModuleTech USA, on 16-17 June 2026, will be our fifth PV ModulelTech conference dedicated to the U.S. utility scale solar sector. The event will gather the key stakeholders from solar developers, solar asset owners and investors, PV manufacturing, policy-making and and all interested downstream channels and third-party entities. The goal is simple: to map out the PV module supply channels to the U.S. out to 2027 and beyond.

Read Next

October 9, 2025
Solar PV is the world’s cheapest technology to generate electricity, according to a study from the University of Surrey, in the UK.
October 9, 2025
Entergy Arkansas has announced plans to build a 600MW solar-plus-storage project to support a new data centre to be built by Google.
October 9, 2025
Chinese inverter and storage manufacturer Sungrow has revealed details of its planned flotation on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
October 9, 2025
The retroactive collection of duties on historical solar imports to the US has been temporarily paused pending the outcome of an appeal.
October 8, 2025
US solar module prices jumped in Q3 2025 as developers scrambled to meet the 2 September 2025 safe harbour deadline for Investment Tax Credit (ITC) qualification, according to supply chain platform Anza.
October 8, 2025
Despite policy headwinds on the federal level, there is optimism for the future of the US solar and storage sector.

Subscribe to Newsletter

Upcoming Events

Solar Media Events
October 21, 2025
New York, USA
Solar Media Events
November 25, 2025
Warsaw, Poland
Solar Media Events
December 2, 2025
Málaga, Spain
Solar Media Events
February 3, 2026
London, UK